## Facts

- James Wright operated a gambling scheme called the “policy” or “envelope” game open to the public.
- A participant selected a number and paid money to play.
- After payment, the operator drew an envelope from a box containing many envelopes.
- Each envelope contained a slip listing multiple numbers.
- If the participant’s chosen number appeared on the slip, the participant received a multiple of the amount paid (based on agreed odds); otherwise the participant lost the payment.
- The slips’ contents were limited in a way that made the odds of winning capable of exact calculation.

## Issues

1. Whether the policy/envelope game, in which a participant pays for a chance that a chosen number will appear on a randomly drawn slip yielding a prize, constitutes a “lottery” prohibited by Massachusetts Public Statutes c. 209, § 1.
2. Whether a scheme lacks “chance” for lottery purposes because the probabilities of winning can be exactly calculated.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overruled Wright’s exceptions and left his conviction in place.
- The court held the policy/envelope game was a “lottery” under Public Statutes c. 209, § 1.
- The court rejected the argument that mathematically determinable odds eliminate chance, reasoning that the particular result remains uncertain to the participant.

## Legal Principles

- For lottery law, an event involves “chance” when the result is uncertain and not predictable to the participant, even if the probabilities can be calculated with precision.
- The fact that the odds are fixed or knowable does not negate chance; probability describes averages over many trials, not certainty in the individual outcome.
- A lottery is characterized by payment of a price for the chance of a prize under a scheme operated by the promoter using a selection mechanism, as distinguished from an ordinary wager typically executory on both sides and dependent on events independent of the parties’ actions.

## Conclusion

The court sustained Wright’s conviction by classifying the policy/envelope game as a prohibited lottery: participants paid money for a prize determined by an outcome uncertain to them, and the ability to calculate odds did not remove the element of chance required for a lottery.


Commonwealth v. Wright, 137 Mass. 250 (1884)